Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)(43)

Own it.

Yes.

How easy it would be to just clamp down on the world around me. Suck up its life force and leave it dead in the street just because someone tells me I should. Because someone points a finger and says “Those are the bad guys. Those men over there.” Kill, they say. Kill because you trust us. Kill because you’re fighting for the right team. Kill because they’re bad, and we’re good. Kill because we tell you to. Because some people are so stupid that they actually think there are thick neon lines separating good and evil. That it’s easy to make that kind of distinction and go to sleep at night with a clear conscience. Because it’s okay.

It’s okay to kill a man if someone else deems him unfit to live.

What I really want to say is who the hell are you and who are you to decide who gets to die. Who are you to decide who should be killed. Who are you to tell me which father I should destroy and which child I should orphan and which mother should be left without her son, which brother should be left without a sister, which grandmother should spend the rest of her life crying in the early hours of the morning because the body of her grandchild was buried in the ground before her own.

What I really want to say is who the hell do you think you are to tell me that it’s awesome to be able to kill a living thing, that it’s interesting to be able to ensnare another soul, that it’s fair to choose a victim simply because I’m capable of killing without a gun. I want to say mean things and angry things and hurtful things and I want to throw expletives in the air and run far, far away; I want to disappear into the horizon and I want to dump myself on the side of the road if only it will bring me toward some semblance of freedom but I don’t know where to go. I have nowhere else to go.

And I feel responsible.

Because there are times when the anger bleeds away until it’s nothing but a raw ache in the pit of my stomach and I see the world and wonder about its people and what it’s become and I think about hope and maybe and possibly and possibility and potential. I think about glasses half full and glasses to see the world clearly. I think about sacrifice. And compromise. I think about what will happen if no one fights back. I think about a world where no one stands up to injustice.

And I wonder if maybe everyone here is right.

If maybe it’s time to fight.

I wonder if it’s ever actually possible to justify killing as a means to an end and then I think of Kenji. I think of what he said. And I wonder if he would still call it awesome if I decided to make him my prey.

I’m guessing not.





TWENTY-SIX


Kenji is already waiting for me.

He and Winston and Brendan are sitting at the same table again, and I slide into my seat with a distracted nod and eyes that refuse to focus in front of me.

“He’s not here,” Kenji says, shoving a spoonful of breakfast into his mouth.

“What?” Oh how fascinating look at this fork and this spoon and this table. “What do y—”

“Not here,” he says, his mouth still half full of food.

Winston clears his throat, scratches the back of his head. Brendan shifts in his seat beside me.

“Oh. I—I, um—” Heat flushes up my neck as I look around at the 3 guys sitting at this table. I want to ask Kenji where Adam is, why he isn’t here, how he’s doing, if he’s okay, if he’s been eating regularly. I want to ask a million questions I shouldn’t be asking but it’s blatantly clear that none of them want to talk about the awkward details of my personal life. And I don’t want to be that sad, pathetic girl. I don’t want pity. I don’t want to see the uncomfortable sympathy in their eyes.

So I sit up. Clear my throat.

“What’s going on with the patrols?” I ask Winston. “Is it getting any worse?”

Winston looks up midchew, surprised. He swallows down the food too quickly and coughs once, twice. Takes a sip of his coffee—tar black—and leans forward, looking eager. “It’s getting weirder,” he says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, so, remember how I told you guys that Warner was showing up every night?”

Warner. I can’t get the image of his smiling, laughing face out of my head.

We nod.

“Well.” He leans back in his chair. Holds up his hands. “Last night? Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Brendan’s eyebrows are high on his forehead. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“I mean no one was there.” He shrugs. Picks up his fork. Stabs at a piece of food. “Not Warner, not a single soldier. Night before last?” He looks around at us. “Fifty, maybe seventy-five soldiers. Last night, zero.”

“Did you tell Castle about this?” Kenji isn’t eating anymore. He’s staring at Winston with a focused, too-serious look on his face. It’s worrying me.

“Yeah.” Winston nods as he takes another sip of his coffee. “I turned in my report about an hour ago.”

“You mean you haven’t gone to sleep yet?” I ask, eyes wide.

“I slept yesterday,” he says, waving a haphazard hand at me. “Or the day before yesterday. I can’t remember. God, this coffee is disgusting,” he says, gulping it down.

“Right. Maybe you should lay off the coffee, yeah?” Brendan tries to grab Winston’s cup.